Tracking down your mates when you’re going for a few cheeky ones doesn’t mean hours spent wandering around looking for the right boozer. Make use of Nokia maps and make sure your mates know where to find you. Or you them. It’s also handy for letting your mum know where she can find you. Ah bless.

What’s the point?

Spend more time at the bar and less standing outside in the rain on the phone trying to guide your mates there by the power of voice.

Is it free?

Almost – just the cost of a text or MMS.

Sold! How do I do it?

Step 1: First you have to know where you are. If you’ve got a good sense of direction that’s easy. Download Nokia Maps from the Nokia site – it’ll let you find places by their name, address or simply what kind of place they are. It’ll download maps over the Internet, but if you don’t have an uncapped data package it’ll be cheaper to fill it up with maps at home. Find out how to do that in our downloading maps tutorial.

Step 2: If you’ve got GPS you won’t have to find your location, your phone will do it. Fire up the Maps app. Give it a minute to zero in, then hit ‘Options’ followed by ‘Selected position’ and ‘Send location’.

Step 3: The type of directions you send to your wandering mates will depend on the type of phones they have. If you’re not sure how advanced their blower is, play it safe with a text message. You’ll get a text containing just the address you’re at so you can fill in the rest yourself.

If they’ve got a Nokia or Windows Mobile phone with Nokia Maps installed you can send them a MMS complete with map link. Your phone will embed a ‘location object’, as well as writing the address out in plain text. When it arrives, your mates just have to view the embedded object to find your position on their own map.

Step 4: If you’re just discussing a location, and actually standing there you can save a few pence by sending the location via Bluetooth. This works in exactly the same way as MMS but avoids the cost of using the network. Of course, you’ll have to be standing next to them, but it’s useful for rallying the troops or sharing the destinations for a Bar hop in case anyone gets lost en route.